Lumen Winter 2016 - Flipbook - Page 29
of-this-world author
S
ean Williams knows this better than
most; the New York Times bestselling author has had a prolific
career spanning hundreds of novels and
short stories, including contributing three
novels to the expansive Star Wars franchise.
Like the cursor blinking at the top
left corner of a freshly opened Word
document, Sean’s university career also
began as a plethora of possibility.
While growing up, reading and writing
were hobbies for Sean; his parents
were both school teachers and had
programmed into him a love of books
from a young age.
During high school Sean’s creative
drive turned to music, and by the end of
Year 12 he’d won a Young Composers
Award and was being courted by staff at
the Elder Conservatorium who wanted
him to follow through with the hype.
Rather than jump straight into higher
learning though, Sean deferred to think
about where further study might take him.
With lofty dreams of becoming a
famous novelist or composer planted
firmly in his mind, he made his decision
and enrolled, surprisingly, in a Bachelor
of Economics.
Left: Sean Williams
Photography: Brendan Homan
“I decided to go to uni to get a sense
of a real job and then retire when I was
40 to do all of this other stuff that I was
interested in,” Sean says.
“There are two parts to my brain;
there’s a creative part, but there’s also
an organised, ordered part of my brain
… so I really loved first year economics.”
Passions are not so easily
sidelined, though.
Sean spent two-and-a-half years
in the economics degree before his
creative drive became restless and –
only months away from reaching the end
of his third and final year – he transferred
into an arts degree and eventually
dropped out completely.
He was not without a plan though.
With a distinction under his belt from
a science fiction writing course at uni,
Sean felt qualified to at least try and
become a published author, so he set
himself a 10-year deadline.
The stakes were high; if he didn’t
publish a novel in that time it was
straight back to his economics degree
and into a real job.
Sure enough, Sean not only published
a novel within the 10 years, he was
asked to write three Star Wars books,
and he had managed to find a place on
the New York Times Bestsellers list.
A powerhouse of
world-class research
The University of Adelaide received an outstanding result in
the latest national measure of research quality in Australia –
and the Creative Writing discipline continues to be among
the highest performers. In the Excellence in Research for
Australia (ERA) ratings, 82% of the University’s research
areas were considered to be above or well above world
standard. Of the 67 individual research areas assessed,
more than half achieved the maximum rating of 5.
“This is an outstanding result, reflecting great depth of
research quality and the huge regard in which the University’s
researchers are held within Australia and globally,” says
Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Warren Bebbington.
But despite the accolades and
achievements, there was something
niggling at the back of Sean’s mind.
“I was quite proud of the fact that I’d
dropped out of university to pursue my
career … but it was a relief to decide
that I was going to come back because
I don’t like leaving things unfinished,
and that … unfinished degree is still
bothering me,” he laughs.
Sean enrolled in a University of Adelaide
Masters program in 2005 and has since
undertaken a PhD studying the history
of the teleporter in fiction, and can now
add being the world expert on that niche
subject to his long list of credentials.
Sean’s story has been captured as
part of the University’s Seek Light
campaign, which aims to highlight
the diverse career journeys of some
of our most interesting alumni.
More stories can be viewed at
www.adelaide.edu.au/seek-light
Professor Brian Castro, Chair of Creative Writing One,
says having Nobel Laureate Professor John Coetzee on
staff is just one of the reasons for the department’s success.
“Our Creative Writing staff and students publish much quality
work each year, work which has an international outlet and
appeal. We are not just writers, but thinkers who write in
fictional form,” he says. “The Creative Writing department
has a fast-growing reputation for guiding writer-scholars
towards the highest standards in publishing. We practice
what we preach and, in the real world, we get the readership
for which we aim.”
More than 18,600 individual research outputs by academic
staff and affiliates of the University were assessed as part
of the latest ERA process. For the full details of ERA ratings
across each research area, see the ERA Institution Report
www.adelaide.edu.au/research/our-research/strengths/era
The University of Adelaide | Alumni Magazine 27
